The Kiss of the Concubine: A story of Anne Boleyn (23 page)

“The king is coming, Anne.” Mary hovers at the foot of the bed. “Shall I take the child, or …” She does not finish her sentence. With one shake of my head I dismiss her and, reading my silent wishes correctly, she herds all the women from my presence, leaving me to face the wrath of the king alone.

He comes in quietly, his hat in his hand, as if seeking penitence. Where I had expected rage, I find sorrow, and where I had expected retribution, I find only defeat. His close-cropped hair is glinting, the candlelight forming a nimbus around his head, but it is the only bright thing about him. His shoulders are slumped, his cheeks sagging, his eyes unusually clouded. I clear my throat and speak softly. “It is a girl, My Lord.”

“Yes,” he says, after a long moment. “So they tell me.” 

When he doesn’t look at us, I hoist her higher in my arms. “She is lusty, Henry, and has a suck on her like a piglet, and her brothers will be even stronger.”

At last he raises his eyes, attempts to smile. “Brothers,” he says hoarsely. “I like the sound of that.”

Encouraged, I sit up straighter and try to keep the tremor from my voice.

“Come, Henry. Won’t you hold her, or look at her at least?  We need to think of a suitable name.”

He comes reluctantly to stand at the head of the bed, and I tilt the child in my arms so that the light falls across her face. She screws up her eyes in protest and opens her mouth in a milky yawn before discovering her fist and beginning to chomp upon it. “She has red hair, like yours.” I add.

“But not much of it,” he remarks. For a few moments that seem to last a week
, he examines her face, lifts the edge of the shawl to look upon her limbs. I swear I can see a softening of his expression.

“Here, take her, Henry, feel the weight of her, how well-formed she is.”

With our child in his arms, he turns away, moves from the bed, and I see her tiny fist fly out to clench around his finger. “A good grip,” he says, and his voice is a little lighter now. He turns back to me. “We have made a good start, Sweetheart.”

Relief surges through me like a flooding tide, and I know I am forgiven. I know we will love and breed again. I have not lost him
, and next time I will get it right. I have to get it right.

“What about Elizabeth?” he says, perching on the edge of the bed, making clucking noises at his daughter who sleeps blissfully on.

“After your mother?” I smile, for his suggestion shows favour indeed.

“And yours, of course,” he says. I sit forward, peer over his shoulder at our sleeping child.
“Yes, E-liz-a-beth.” I enunciate the word, trying out the name. “That will do nicely, and we can name her brother Henry, after your father.”

He looks at me, his brow quirked.
“My father? I should think not. No, we shall name him Henry, but it won’t be after him, it will be after me.”

“Watch over her, George. I am putting her in your care.”

My brother laughs his big laugh. “She has all the king’s men looking to her safety but, if it makes you feel better, I will not let her out of my sight.”

I am piqued that Elizabeth’s christening will take place without me but I have not yet been churched, and the customs of the lying-in chamber hold me captive. I would prefer to join in the ceremony, watch for those who dare to look askance at my daughter and question her legitimacy. I know there are those still loyal to Catherine and her bastard daughter, and it is good to know one’s enemy. To appease my qualms, Mary and Nan promise to relate every detail of the day on their return and Henry, of course, will be present too.

The king has allowed no
one the opportunity to scoff at our princess. She is his legitimate heir and he will allow none to gainsay it. Although the jousts and pageants that were prepared for our prince have been cancelled, the christening is to go ahead as planned, a magnificent ceremony fit for our daughter, our Elizabeth.

Everyone of note is to take part in the proceedings, even the Marchioness of Exeter, friend and supporter to Catherine, whom Henry has left with little choice but to attend.

“I’ll show her to whom she owes allegiance,” Henry mocks. “I will make her god-mother to our daughter and force her to bow the knee to her, and I will make her do so before all our friends too.”

I smile luxuriously. “And she won’t be able to resist carrying tales back to Catherine and your bastard either.”

“No.” Henry’s smile fades, as it always does when I refer to Mary as ‘bastard.’ I do so often just to ensure that he does not relent, does not reinstate her in her place of honour. She is sprung from the loins of an illicit union, and as such has no place in the line of succession. She has no place in our palaces or in our kingdom, and if I disliked and resented her overt resistance to me before, I dislike her even more now that I have a daughter of my own.

Henry has removed her privileges, disbanded her household
, but still she refuses to bend the knee and declare her parents’ marriage invalid. She is as stubborn as her mother. How much easier everything would have been had Catherine only been willing to back down. Every misfortune that has sprung from Henry’s struggle to be free of her can be laid directly at her feet. All the suffering, the risk of war with Spain; everything is Catherine’s fault and I will not have Mary, who is cut from the same cloth, doing likewise. We will thwart her stubbornness. She will be made to bow to my daughter, and if she does not, she will suffer.

The decision is hers.

Just a few attendants wait with me in my chamber. They sew in silence, every so often breaking into my thoughts to enquire if I would like a drink, or if my pillows need plumping. I answer with a shake of my head, my mind with Henry and our daughter as she is embraced by God into the Christian
Church.

It is a long time before I hear movement in the outer chambers and know that the
christening gifts are being delivered to my apartments. There are further ceremonies, ritual blessings and prayers, and I grow quite fidgety with impatience, waiting for them to come.

By the time they return and Elizabeth is placed in my arms, my breasts are aching with milk. I
immediately loosen the neck of my gown and she latches on to me in a frenzy of feeding, both of us relaxing at once, and I know without doubt that she is glad to be back.

Soon the time will come to find her
a wet-nurse, and soon after that, Henry will establish Elizabeth in a household of her own. She will be raised far away from us in Hatfield, and the thought is difficult to bear. Even though I know our visits will be regular, the knowledge that we will necessarily be parted makes these few weeks all the more precious.

There are mothers who refuse the services of
a wet-nurse, but I cannot allow myself that luxury. Everyone knows that a child at breast reduces a woman’s fruitfulness and hinders conception. If I am to fall quickly with Henry’s son, I will need a rapid return to fertility.

As I look down at my feeding babe I stroke her downy red head
, and idly listen to Mary and Jane’s chatter.

“I never saw such solemnity,” Mary say
s as she and Jane settle at the hearth. Mary kicks off her shoes and wiggles her toes while the other women gather around and begin to discuss the day’s events.

“I never saw such care taken over a child,” Jane sniffs. “Her attendants were scarcely allowed to breathe on her.”

Elizabeth, the daughter of me, Anne Boleyn, was for one day the centre of the world, the pivot around which everybody turned. I had heard that the walk from the Great Hall to the Church of the Observant Friars was covered in a thick carpet of green rushes, and hung with rich arras. The walls of the church, both inside and out, were swathed with hangings to keep out draughts, and for fear of contamination, Elizabeth’s attendants were swathed in aprons and towels.

Everyone was present, the mayor and council, our closest friends and family and, bar one or two of the most obstinate, even our direst enemies. How I hope they will carry a vivid picture of the ostentatious display back to Catherine in her draughty castle. How I hope she will squirm.

“Everyone was there,” Mary gabbles, her eyes wide, her hands enhancing her descriptions with a graceful dance. “Gentlemen, squires, chaplains and alderman, everyone was there. Mary of Norfolk bore the chrisom and the old duchess carried Elizabeth. She was swathed in royal purple and our father bore the train with Norfolk and Suffolk on either side. Suffolk’s discomfort was plain to see but he dare not complain, not in this. Henry would forgive him many things, but not a snub to his precious princess.”

I glance quickly at her to see if there is spite behind Mary’s words. She must feel and resent the difference between her daughter and mine, born to the same father, in such different circumstances. I wonder if she believes she herself could have been queen had she only showed more cunning.

I prise Elizabeth’s jaws from my nipple and she makes a face, squeals like a piglet when I sit her up and deprive her of sustenance. Like a drunken old man she slumps forward over my supporting hand while I rub her back until she belches. A trickle of milk runs across my wrist and I turn her around, bare the other breast, and she latches on again.

Jane raises her eyebrows. “She is a lusty feeder, Anne.”

I smile, glad of praise for my offspring, even when it comes from those I do not favour. Usually Jane, who craves a child of her own, pays babies little heed, pretending they hold no charm for her. “You will have to find her a milch cow rather than a wet-nurse,” she continues, spoiling the brief instance of camaraderie by reminding me that these halcyon days must necessarily be short.

My smile drops and tears prick the back of my lids, but I blink them away and turn my face back to Mary, who continues her tale.

“You should have heard the trumpets and seen the torches! I have never seen so many in one place, or heard so many cries of good-will from the people as they looked on. They love little Elizabeth already.”

This last is satisfying
, for rumours persist that the public hate me and resent my daughter for what is seen by some as her usurpation of Mary’s place. Now that I have proved my fertility by giving them a princess, maybe the people will love me and, secure in the nation’s love, I can bring forth a boy.

Just as Elizabeth’s appetite is waning, Henry barges into the chamber
. After kissing my hair, he holds out his arms for her. I hand her over. “She is sleepy now, My Lord, and in need of gentle handling.”

“Gentle? Am I not gentle?” He holds her aloft and looks up into her red face, waggles her from side to side before placing her against his shoulder.

He supports her head, and father and daughter process about the room, Henry smiling on the company, making my women giggle with his indulgent remarks about his offspring. When he turns away from me toward the window, I see that Elizabeth has disgorged a goodly portion of her milk down the back of her father’s doublet. I refrain from informing him of the fact. It serves him right for ignoring my instruction.

Mary sees it too and we exchange glances, suppressing our laughter as we continue to be bemused by Henry’s infatuation.

Accompanied by
a small cavalcade, Henry and I ride across the frigid countryside to visit our daughter. We leave so early that a thick frost still rimes the trees, and our breath puffs from our mouths, the vapour hanging long in the air before dissipating.

I have spent a restless night, full of excitement at being with Elizabeth again. I cannot imagine how she will have grown. She will have settled into her new home, learnt new skills and, to my secret sorrow, found comfort from another woman’s breast. This morning I feel alive, young and invincible. I dig in my heels, urge my palfrey into a canter
, and Henry, ever one to love a chase, joins me with a loud halloo. 

Although they do their best to follow, we leave our attendants behind. Henry quickly outstrips me, leaning low over his horse’s ears, grinning at me as he passes, his thick fur cloak billowing behind him, the feather in his cap streaming in the wind. I have no hope of catching him but I raise my whip and follow, my hat bouncing on my head, my petticoats blowing about my knees.

The wind whips tears from my eyes as I chase him down a slope and through a stand of trees. We splash across a ford and into a village, where a band of peasants watch open-mouthed as their king and queen streak through the settlement.

He finally draws to a halt on the brow of a hill. Our mounts circle and snort, sides heaving, harness jingling. Our blood is up and we are both breathing hard. We exchanged smiles
. I put up a hand to straighten my hat and he reaches out, takes my fingers, edges his horse toward mine. “You look like a young girl again,” he says, leaning precariously from the saddle to kiss my knuckles.

“Do I?” It is ridiculous to be so flustered by the attentions of one’s own husband but recently, since Elizabeth’s birth, although we couple regularly on our never
-ending quest for a male heir, real affection has been missing.

He squints across the landscape, pushes back his cap and scratches his head. “When we were courting I’d have lured you into the woods by now and tried to deflower you in the undergrowth.”

In the silence that follows, I fumble for a reply. I open my mouth, feel my face flush scarlet as the words tumble unbidden from my lips.

“Is it not extraordinary that you no longer attempt to ravish me now I have no cause to deny you?”

He looks at me quickly, his face relaxing into serious lines, his eyes searching mine as the vapours of our breath mingle in the air. Oh God, now he will think me unchaste.

My heart feels as if it has ceased to beat. After a long moment he stoops forward, takes hold
of my reins. “Come, Madam,” he says and, kicking his mount straight into a canter, steers me to the bottom of the hill where a lazy river loops beneath an avenue of trees.

My head crashes into the tree trunk, Henry’s mouth hot on my neck, his hands rasping across my skin. He hoists my skirts and takes me rapidly, with all the pent
-up passion I have missed. As his hot, urgent kisses increase I feel a warm, almost burning sensation in my loins. I cling around his neck, my mouth opening as my body melts and my limbs threaten to give way. This is it, I think, as joy takes hold of me. This is how it should be, this is what George meant.

I wrap myself around him
. He hoists me higher, lifting me away from the tree so we become one living being, joined at the groin. I throw back my head and dissolve into him, as he touches the very root of my soul.

Afterwards, thoroughly shaken, my knees still trembling, he helps tuck my hair back beneath my veil and brushes the worst of the lichen from the back of my cloak. I feel alight inside, as if there is a torch burning in my groin
, but I put away my wanton self and resume my role as queen. He stoops, makes a stirrup of his hands and hoists me back into the saddle, holds the bridle while I arrange my skirts. “Thank you, Henry,” I murmur and our eyes meet. Mine are smouldering and grateful, his are guarded, embarrassed even. He flushes like a maid and, knowing my thanks are not just for his assistance in mounting, jerks his head in acknowledgment. 

He knows it was different
; he cannot but be aware that I have gained more pleasure from this encounter than any other, but he is too squeamish to mention it. As I follow him back up the hill toward our waiting party, who are craning their heads in curiosity, I watch his back, enjoy the way his body moves in perfect unison with his mount. I feel warm inside and sated, the residue of his love still moist within me. I wonder if we can prolong the pleasure next time, for surely that is the most pleasant way to make a child. For the first time in a long while, I feel confident in our marriage, and loved again.

Hatfield House slumbers, the windows a myriad of diamonds in the midday sunshine. We clatter up the hill and beneath the red
-bricked arch into the courtyard, and grooms come running to take our horses.  As I am assisted from the saddle I hear the crunch of footsteps on the gravel behind me, and turn to find Lady Bryan with Elizabeth in her arms.